


Knees of Green

by The_Moon_When_I_Am_Lost



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andromaquynh Secret Santa 2020, F/F, Harold They're Lesbians Meme, Pre Iron-Maiden, as always, canon adjacent, the fic is much less slaphappy than my tags, the inherent homoeroticism of citrus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28518282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Moon_When_I_Am_Lost/pseuds/The_Moon_When_I_Am_Lost
Summary: Pre-movie fic, Andromache has been away, Quynh has a cape, all things need love to grow.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: Andromaquynh Secret Santa 2020





	Knees of Green

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mieraspeller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mieraspeller/gifts).



It’s been two weeks since Andromache had gotten separated from them in the battle, and while Quynh had all faith in her wife, it was starting to worry her. The boys were trying to be helpful, but if Nicolo says one more … encouraging thing about “Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” or “Two halves of one whole heart can never truly be parted,” Quynh is going to throw a rock at his head. 

Fall harvest was imminent. It was silly to feel alone in a house full of love, but she did. Roma had work to do in the next town over, and Quynh could work to keep their home safe here. She dons a simple skirt and Andromache’s cape, Quynh grabbed her handled basket and left the cabin. She set out, looking into the distance, following a path that she knew like the lines on Andromaches’ palms. 

With quick feet and a wanting heart, she soon found herself in the hibiscus grove. It was easy to think of her wife there. The grove was a gift that had grown steadily through the years to hold decades’ worth of memories. Stories of love and dirt and patience, keep them fresh for the harvest of each day, ripe enough to taste at any recall. 

As she steps between the trees she feels her heart swell like the first time she set foot here, when Andromache, smiling and covered in soil, had pulled her into a clearing full of freshly turned earth and dragged her by the hand through the unworn paths, pointing to each sectioned area and explaining what would go where. Few things could stop Andromache when she had things to say, and this was no exception. It went on for some time, Roma’s face bright and a bit flushed, outlining how the Hibiscus plants would ring the trees here, the pepper and tomato plants here, and perhaps a fig tree in the back — 

Quynh felt like she was chasing a bee around the grove, heavy with promise, a garden pollinated by faith and trust. She smiled and reached out with the hand not clasped in Roma’s. “ _ Cưng _” how did you get dirt in your hair?” Her beloved stopped to let her free the garden from her head, pulling her fingers softly through the strands until she was satisfied.

She looked up to Andromache’s face again, tongue light with the intent to tease her wife, and was caught instead by a gaze she knew too well. They drifted close to each other, chests rising in synch, the air between them tightened. It was easy to tilt her head just so, to gather her wife’s hair in her hands, to close her eyes as Andromache placed their lips together. The soft and easy press of familiarity settled them on the newly turned earth, and when they rose they had both had gathered a garden in their hair. 

Now, Quynh sat in their garden alone, not even counting the stars, she already knew their names, but what did they matter now? Apart from Andromache, the sky was a vast sea of empty eyes. The only person who had pulled the stars down for her was Roma, a warrior strong enough to shine in peace as she did in war. Apart from Andromache she often felt like half of a blade, a hilt with no extension. Deciding that there was no use sitting about, she could sigh just as well tending to the garden as she could yearning on the bench, she gathered her skirts and her trowel. 

She knelt down to tend to the peppers first. It would take longer working alone, but it needed to be done. It would fill the hours if nothing else. 

While two weeks was nothing to an immortal, time somehow had a way of warping, a way of making the seconds into hours, the days into minutes. Andromache had tracked down the bandits they had been following. Dispatching them was easily done, finding their leader, gathering their movements, and locations. It was easy but time-consuming, luring them into dark corners and allowing the village to breathe without fear of their holdings. Finally, she was done, it was time for her to get back to her family. 

Andromache felt the distance with each step she took through the market towards the edge of town. While she had missed them all, the need for her wife hung from her shoulders like a wool cloak. Roma sees flashes of Quynh in every person she passes. Flashes of her clever hands, her dark and sparkling eyes, the curve of her hip against a fruit stall, her laughter on the wind. 

After walking through fields and farms for hours she came upon the town square. She spends an eternity dodging through stalls and around the edge of the village. Andromache ran the final distance to their house. As she came upon the door to their cottage, Yusuf is leaning in the entryway, holding out a hand for her pack. “She took her basket out an hour ago.” His face is bright and laughing the way it always is when they reunite, whether they be apart for years or for hours. 

She hears Nicolo yelling from the kitchen, “Hurry back you two so we can have supper at a reasonable hour, yes?” 

“I make no promises!” 

She needs no direction; she knows the path to the grove the way she knows the line of Quynh’s thighs. Andromache enters the grove to see Quynh tending to the new growth. She sets her labrys just out of reach and leans against the bench, breathing the air of home, of the same place as her wife. 

Watching a woman could steal your breath. And it’s a different kind of magic to see her hands working the soil rather than a weapon. So often they were fighting or running, or fighting and running. This was a quiet joy, a small reprieve in the setting sun, the stillness of the grove. 

She tries to commit the moment to memory. She stands taking in the lines of Quynh’s back, the way her hips hold her weight, the working song she hums so often, her hands folding strawberries into the basket. When she moves silently to kneel by the, their eyes catch and hold. Quynh reaches up to fold a spade into her hand, gentle like butterfly wings and azalea buds and places the basket between them. 

Years of knowing how to make their movements easy, build a steady rhythm between them. What leaves to trim, what’s ready to harvest, what should be left on the vine. Steady as heartbeats, timing is everything. 

It was a practiced thing too, the way that they made their movements slower as they finished collecting the rosemary, the distance between them shrinking as each woman breathed in the other. Their hands brushing in the basket between them. 

They set their tools aside and reach for each other. Cheek to cheek, arms around waists, hand pressing fingers spread wide and digging into cloth. Lips, pink and open, pressed tight to taste, small nips and laughter. Closer still, pulling off blouses and kissing the skin warm. On the ground pressed together, Andromache cups her favorite breast to her mouth and notices the dirt on her hands. She leans back, “We can’t work like this.”

“What?” Quynh's lips parted as she made herself arch into those hands.

Wordlessly, Andromache links their hands together and pulled them between their eyes. 

Quynh sits forward, pushing Roma to the side; she blinks slowly, laughs “Race you!” and shoves off the ground to rush through the pomelo trees. Laughing, Andromache throws her head back, “Unfair!” then dashes after her.

Later, when they’re lounging on the shore with Quynh’s head on Andromache’s belly, tracing mindless shapes on her wife’s thigh, Quynh says, “I know that I shouldn’t worry when you aren’t nearby. It just that sometimes I can’t stop it.” She pauses, and Roma strokes her hair once, twice, as she tilts her head back. “I know it’s just a matter of time until we’re together again. Because it’s just you and me.”

Andromache lifts both of their heads so that they can see eye to eye. “Until the end, Solnyshka.”

They walk back to the grove, fingers entwined, hands swinging lightly between them. As they dress, Andromache chuckles and asks, “How much do you want to bet those two will have something to say about our green knees making them wait for dinner?”

“I’m married to you Andromache. I know better than to take a sucker’s bet.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! Thank you so much to the best Bestie/Beta @Joules, all other flaws/typos are cuz my head is empty... Happy 2021!!!
> 
> Come see me on Tumblr! https://www.tumblr.com/blog/themoonwheniamlost


End file.
